My German teacher had a very strange idea: that people who have zero experience with the German language will be able to differentiate between right and wrong by the way it sounds.

"'I like you,'" the teacher said. "'I' is nominative. What about 'you'?"

"Dative," I replied. "Ich mag dir."

"Not accusative? 'Ich mag DICH'? Which sounds better to you?"

Which sounds better? That seemed like the wrong road to take. You could propose marriage in German and it'd still sound like you were thinking about hitting somebody with a brick. I didn't say it but I definitely thought it: "Lady, if we cared about what sounded better, you'd be teaching us French right now."